IF a visit by the Braves on Visor Night still left 28,297 seats empty at Shea last night, the same organization that once brought you The Mercury Mets is far from out of ideas to get you to the ballpark in the season’s final three months.
Visor Night is only the first step, to be followed by Blinders Night, when Montreal comes in with twice the team the Mets have for less than half the payroll. Blindfold Night will be held when you just can’t stand the sight of Roger Cedeno anymore.
The Mets had a shot when Cedeno came up with the bases loaded, one out, down 5-3 in the eighth. The crowd, finally working up enough enthusiasm for a Chipper Jones “Larrrrrrry,” if only for old time’s sake, was into it, too, until Lucy jerked away the football again from the Charlie Browns.
One-two-three went Cedeno on the double play, if you were scoring at home and saw nothing from there that would make you want to come out this afternoon, when the cruel Braves hang around for one more.
“You sign a contract, you want to live up to the faith people put in you,” said the banged-up Cliff Floyd, finding motivation to be back in the lineup as early as today.
The fans, which have no such obligation, need to really want to come. And in this market tickets already paid for months earlier is not always a good enough reason. So it was a sight for eyes far sorer than Jose Reyes’ hamstring when the 20-year-old shortstop was back in the lineup after missing five Mets games that weren’t nearly as watchable, potentially, as the kid’s next one.
As often as Reyes’ six errors have compelled you to bury your face in your hands, you can’t keep your head down when he’s playing any more than he can.
Reyes, who went up the ladder to save a run on Mark DeRosa’s liner in the ninth, who couldn’t keep Javy Lopez’s smash in his glove after a diving stop in the seventh, hit four infield tappers, three with men on base. He is now hitting .207, even if he apparently doesn’t believe so. Judging from the response upon his introduction with the starting lineup last night, neither do the fans, and not only because they are desperate for something, anything, new.
“There’s an energy to him, the way he plays the game,” said Art Howe, when asked if the dugout feels it, too. “He’s smiling all the time, looks like somebody enjoying his work.”
Fans work misplaced anger resenting Mike Schmidts for not being Pepper Martins. Some of baseball’s coolest customers are among its best players. Smoothness is often unfairly confused with indifference.
That said, when the joy of the game is visible in every Reyes step, it can charge a bench, maybe eventually help recharge this stadium. The Mets’ bigger worry than keeping Reyes’ confidence up as he learns to play at this level is keeping him healthy. This hamstring strain already was his third lower-body injury of the season. And Howe says a leg-strengthening program tailored for Reyes is an off-season must.
He still has the body of a boy, primarily because he is still is one. Derek Jeter weighs 195 pounds, Reyes 160, and, of course, there will be a point of diminishing returns if he isn’t hitting that weight three weeks from now. Reyes’ sporadic eye-opening plays can’t close organizational minds to the obligation of sending their best prospect back to Triple-A if that smile proves the only clothes of a young emperor.
The Mets insist the kid is not here to sell tickets, only being given the opportunity to adjust as quickly to this level as he has at every other. We’ll see about that, certain of nothing but that Reyes makes the often-painful process riveting.
